Squid Girl has a plot that is hardly focused or has any substance to the original goal that the squid character, Ike, intended to do. It mainly involves her trying to learn about humanity and the culture of Japan that she is settling in. It’s essentially a show based on culture shock and how foreigners try to adapt to a different country that they have no idea about. The tone of the series is light-hearted and comedic; they handle it pretty well without hampering the basic premise conflicting with the comedy. It’s pretty entertaining to watch and, at times, funny to see Ike acting very holier than thou upon the people she meets when she has no power over the others whatsoever.
With a show like Squid Girl, you need to supply great characters that are both funny and memorable to watch. While some garner a lot of entertainment, others are not fully realized and don’t add much depth to the comedy. The best ones that I liked the most were Ike, Eiko, and Chizuru. They all have so much great chemistry together and make many great gags work perfectly. Chizuru provides some of the best scenes involving her having a friendly personality. Still, once something terrible happens to her or the workplace, she turns menacing to the person doing the trouble-making. Ike herself, voiced by the always charming Hisako Kanemoto, gives the show a great sense of passion towards making this Slice of life atmosphere into an entertaining comedy with her constant alluring presence in every scene.
Unfortunately, not all of the cast hits the level of greatness and our three main characters. Sanae, Takeru, and Goro all don’t have the same great chemistry with Ike as she does with Eiko and Chizuru. That’s not to say they’re terrible, they do have some funny moments, but it’s essentially just them acting very googly-eyed over Ike’s presence in the world that quickly doesn’t have much to go for in the grand scheme of things. For example, Sanae’s only gag for existing in the show is to be all lovey-dovey over Ike and nothing else. Sure it does get a few laughs, but after a while, the joke falls flat and gets old quickly. If it weren’t for Kanae Itou’s sweet voice playing Sanae, I would probably think lesser of Sanae, to be honest.
Another problem with the show was how each plot arc ended so abruptly. There are times when a plot arc would end, and it didn’t feel like that particular scene felt any closure for it. It ends relatively quickly, and we’re brought up in a different scene. The problem is that they interlude between a different arc by showing a cut of arrows that are supposed to tell us that we’re doing a different arc. Still, it happens so fast that you barely notice it because the arc beforehand hardly had an ending. In turn, some of the arcs felt rushed or weren’t finished in the writing process during production.
In short, I thought there wasn’t anything special to be found in Squid Girl. It might be something that you might show to your younger daughter to have some fun with, but on the other hand, there is some decent humor for adults. It might be a stretch to say that this is Japan’s answer to Spongebob. The only difference is that Spongebob had a lot of great memorable characters while Squid Girl only had three that are even worth discussing over. It’s a harmless show for what it is, a decently entertaining show for older kids. Even with some of the adult innuendo thrown in, that’s at least that's something that most kids' shows are hardly about these days.
Grade: B-
